


The Exception

by mooseholmes



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Mentions of Suicide, first person (I'm so sorry)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-27 15:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19015951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooseholmes/pseuds/mooseholmes
Summary: Death finds an exception.





	The Exception

**Author's Note:**

> I found this story when I was using an old notebook while MCAT studying. Honestly, I don't really remember writing this? I think it's vaguely based off of Death from Supernatural, but I couldn't tell you more.

              Waiting. Just…waiting.

              What am I waiting for? Who knows. I certainly don’t. The people around me don’t. The blinding whiteness that surrounds us doesn’t. But we are waiting.

              We’re dressed in grey. Different shades of grey, but grey nonetheless. My shade is a dark, dark grey – close to black. A smiling old lady next to me had on a very light, almost happy grey. She stands, like the rest of us, and smiles into the whiteness. I fiddle with my grey-almost-black shirt and scratch my throat. It hurts, but it itches even more.

              I don’t remember many things before now. There are snippets, blurs in my memory. Shouting, crying, smiling, alone. Always alone. There is a face of a beautiful aging woman looming over me, but her name remains a mystery. I remember her laughter-induced wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, her chocolate-brown hair perfectly framing her ace, the silver streak racing down the long lengths of her locks, her beautiful hazel-green eyes glittering with joy. I remember everything about her in great detail, but there is no name to the face. I miss her.

              All I know is that I am here and alone, There is not a familiar face in sight. Of the hundreds of people here, most are elderly. There are several children, some around my age, but most are old. They seem peaceful, content even, with everything and everyone in our infinite white room. The children, on the other hand, look scared. Confused. Hungry. Perhaps I could help them. I walk to them, weaving my way around the others. I approach one, a small girl of about six, and crouch down to talk to here. I open my mouth – and stop.

              She does not see me nor does she acknowledge my presence. It is as if I and everyone else do not exist. Bewildered, I stand back up and look around, shocked to see that everyone wears the same expression. Staring blankly into the void, as if they are lost in their own dream world. Nobody moves, nobody speaks, nobody breathes. I am, once again, scared and alone.

              A cough interrupts my thoughts. I spin around to find a wiry old man dressed in a well-tailored suit sitting on a bench. I am more startled by his sudden appearance than his existence, but once I focus on him, I realize that he is distinctly different from the others around me. For one thing, he is the only one here eating from a carton of fries.

              As if reading my thoughts, the old man looks up and silently offers me a fry. His offer makes me realize my hunger, so I take it and sit next to him. I twirl it around my fingers, slightly confused.

              “If you’re not going to eat, then hand it over. I’d rather not waste it,” he says, his lilting British accent making me jump. I contemplate it and hand it over. I am hungry, but not hungry enough for a tiny piece of fried potato. He munches on it as he eats another one, and we sit in silence until he finishes.

              “So,” he says, wiping the grease with a napkin. “I expect you have questions.” He looks at me from the corner of his eye.

              I stare right back. “Where did you get the fries?” I ask.

              He laughs. “That’s a first. It’s a rather quaint restaurant called Heaven’s Own. You should try it sometime, the pizza is fantastic.”

              “Will do,” I nod. A few seconds pass before I ask, “Who are you”.

              At this, he sets his empty carton down and dusts off his overcoat. Despite his age, his facial features are still very well-defined. It’s almost as if he’s looked that way for the past 40 years.

              “One million, actually,” he says. “Ice ages on earth can really age someone, believe it or not.”

              “That’s not answering my question, you know.”

              “You are many things, but you’re not afraid, I can see that now.” He faces me, a glint in his eye. “Humans have many names for me, but the one you are most comfortable with would be Death. You are dead, have been for two days.

              “You are currently in a limbo area, or something that your mind perceives to be a limbo area. Consider it a sort of waiting room before you see the doctor, except in this case, the doctor decides if you will be damned for the rest of eternity or not. Strange, I know, but then again, human are always coming up with new ways to cope. I’m older than time itself, so believe me when I say that I’ve seen stranger.”

              He continues talking as I stare at him blankly. Dead? As in game over, gone, over with, done, goodbye? That’s not possible though, I – _yes it is_.

              It comes back to me in a rush. The yelling, the crying, the sense of abandonment. The nights spent alone, the days spent struggling, the time it wasn’t bearable anymore. The feeling of the rope in my hands, around my neck, getting tighter and tighter until – _I’m dead_.

              A tiny whimper escapes my mouth as my jaw drops. I scratch my throat again and feel the rope burns this time. I feel a sympathetic hand on my knee and look up to see him smiling sadly.

              “They found your body yesterday,” he whispers, patting my knee. “They miss you terribly.”

              “Why can’t they see me then?” I question, pointing to the blank-stared others around me. “If they’re here, they’re dead too, so why can’t they see me? Am I not as dead as them? Have I done something wrong?” My voice gets higher with each sentence, as does my rising panic.

              “I’m simply not letting them see you,” Death says. “You are a special case, one that I myself wanted to see personally.”

              I gape at him slightly. “What could you possibly want from me?”

              “You’ve spent your entire life working for others. You’ve strived to make others happy, never once caring about your own happiness. Eventually it got too much for you, and you fell into a deep vat of tare, but even until the end, you thought you were doing something to help others. Look at you now with those children, there still isn’t an ounce of selfishness left in you, even in death. You devoted your life to helping others, even when it turned around and killed you.

              “Which is why I’m here. I’m here to offer you a choice between an eternity with me, as my assistant, or an eternity in paradise. You can go, live a nice and fulfilling life in Heaven, never having to worry about anyone or anything ever again. Or, should you choose, you could come work for me as a reaper, someone who’d stand by my side until the end of time,” he says, standing and grabbing his sleek black cane. He offers me a hand. “Well?”

              “What would I do?” I ask, eyeing the wrinkled hand.

              “You’d help make the passage easier for the dead. They’ll be confused, frightened, sometimes even violent, but your job is to calm them and bring them here with as little fuss as possible. The work can be tough, but there are perks that can be found,” he explains. “I don’t make this offer very often, especially to someone so young. You are the exception.”

              I eye his hand again. _The exception_. The words rang through my head, bouncing off the walls and hitting each other in the face. They were relatively new words, ones never truly directed at met before. I liked them.

              I grabbed his hand and pulled myself off of the bench. “You’ll have to take me to that fries place at some point, though,” I say, and he laughs as we walk into the white void together, side by side, Death and I.


End file.
